~j^S6 SONNETS TO THE IDEAL 



BERTRAND 




GoiMightN" If / / 



COHnRIGHT DEPOSre 



SONNETS TO THE IDEAL 



Sonnets to the Ideal 



BY 

GEORGE E. BERTRAND 



MINNEAPOLIS 
1911 



T 



5 



tin 



Copyright 1911 by 
George E. Bertrand 



PRESS OF 

HAHN a HARMON CO. 

MINNEAPOLIS 



©CLA30923G 



This is Number /. . O.S of an edition of 

Tivo Hundred Copies, p^-inted on hi',nd-made 
paper. 



INDEX 

I Life's Far Horizons .... 9 

II Earth Clods 11 

III Birth from Burial 13 

IV Nearer and Beyond . . . , 15 
V The Mightier Self 17 

VI The Chariot of the Sun ... 19 

VII Re-Incarnation 21 

VIII Myth of the Winds 23 

IX Vigils 25 

X Somewhere 27 

XI Requiem 29 

XII The Wings of the Morning . . 31 

XIII Love 33 

XIV Fame 35 

XV Peace 37 

XVI Transfiguration 39 



LIFE'S FAR HORIZONS 



I 

Forever, a splendour poised for endless flight, 
Thou hoverest, silent, on mind's outmost verge. 
And fillest life's far horizons with that light 
Wherein mens' mightiest visions melt and merge. 
Thou stand'st aflame, with eager balanced wings. 
As if to launch into that unknown land 
Whence time to mortal sense no message brings. 
And beckonest ever with uplifted hand. 
And rise the babblings from the fleeting reign 
Of human triumph, and heroic deed 
Of heart and hand, and victory over pain. 
And conquests of the world, that claim the meed 
Of laurel at thy feet; and, lo, thy gaze 
Is onward, and thy lips are mute of praise. 



9 



EARTH CLODS 



II 

Thou with the irradiant light upon thy brow, 
That ever in silence life's deep secret locks, 
Melt thou the clod of earth, and sunder thou 
The ancient burden on the soul, that mocks 
The eternal frenzy of imprisoned flight! 
Break thou the seal upon impassioned lips! 
Anoint the eyes that seek with partial sight; 
And quicken thou the nerveless hand that dips 
Reluctant at the brim, to plunge deep down 
Into the unfathomed wells of Truth and Love! 
And level thou the heights of false renown. 
Which flaunt the blazonry of might above 
The ramparts of a world whereon are strown 
The husks of life, and folly's chain and crown. 



11 



BIRTH FROM BURIAL 



Ill 

From lives whose light, through time's dissolved tears, 

Illumes the dim horizons of the past; — 

From errant murmurings down the trend of years, 

Vague echoings of a great Archangel blast 

At each re-incarnation of the truth 

From Nature's first rude shapen matrix down 

The silent ages — from recurring ruth 

Of birth from burial, truth from error flown — 

From fires recasting, ever in new moulds. 

The souls of mighty men from out the womb 

Of earth, that fecund mother who enfolds 

The mystery of life within the tomb — 

Evoke new flame, and power to utterance weld. 

With ichor of immortal tongues of eld! 

13 



NEARER AND BEYOND 



IV 

Not fitful phosfors of the unconscious dust, 
Ephemera of a night that glint and fall- 
Not fleshly hands that vainly grope, to thrust 
Ajar some doorway in our prison wall — 
Not surgings of the blood that flush the brows 
Of fame, encircled with imperial bay 
That, lo, is withered — not impassioned vows 
Of myriad tongues that, lo, are hushed away, — 
Not these shall strike the paean of the soul. 
nearer and beyond! Through dust and sands 
That drift and cling and crumble down the roll 
Of time, there comes a glimmering of the hands 
That sweep the fibres of the universe. 
Thy harp strings, voicing life in chords diverse. 



15 



THE MIGHTIER SELF 



Thy hand withdraws the veil from yesterday; 

And forth through all the past, since first were whirled 

The slow milleniums, there gleams a ray, 

Flashed from the facets of the cycling world, 

Of some strange, mightier self, and I behold 

All brows that felt the diadem of power 

That they are mine, and mine the imperious mould 

Of Gods and fam-ed myths unto this hour. 

All crown-ed bards, mad with the crimson wine 

Of life, who spake and sped the soul of song 

From age to age— behold, their tongues are mine. 

And, lo, that onward-flov/ing myriad throng 

Of toil, yoked ever to the will divine 

For man's deliverance— behold, their hands are mine. 



17 



THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN 



VI 

In glory down the empyrean rolls, 

At eve, the burning chariot of the sun; 

Through azure depths and placid crimson shoals, 

He dips his blood-red disk, until are won 

The drowsy shadow realms of night; and flushed 

In tender ruby fires, are burned away 

The pendant oriels of the sky; and hushed 

The world in dying embers of the day. 

High in the flaming West art thou enthroned 

Amid the mellowing battlements and domes 

Of dreamy phantom cities, opal-toned 

In m.olten seas, and shapes like giant gnomes 

That wait to follow the imperious sun 

Into the under world's oblivion. 



19 



RE-INCARNATION 



VII 

Thou goest before me through funereal woods. 
I tread with reverence on the yielding moss; 
For loudest cry where deepest silence broods 
The voices from the earth, and seem across 
The vaulted glooms their shades to palpitate. 
And all the lingering odorous airs that come 
From bruis-ed flowers, seem laden with the fate 
Of many a honeyed Up and virgin bloom. 
Whose scattered dust, each time of leaf and bud 
Again incarnate in red-hearted flowers, 
Breathes strange old-time aromas through the blood. 
For dust are they of passioned lives in showers 
Of trodden petals, and their spirits flood 
The rustling naves and arches of the wood. 



21 



MYTH OF THE WINDS 



VIII 

The abysm of the night is thine abode; 
And from the lurid caverns of the sky 
Thou summonest the myth of winds, to goad 
His myriad raging furies on, that fly 
With ghostly clamorings along the earth. 
On thundrous wings the hurtled legions sweep 
Away into the night, or come with mirth 
Unchained or roar of sighs. They rave or sleep 
In fitful breathings of the dark, and through 
Each pause anon there steals upon the soul 
A vision of the vanished myriads who, 
In mists sun-tempted from the earth, now roll 
Across the terrored gloom their fretted train, 
And, passing, beat and weep athwart the pane. 



23 



VIGILS 



IX 

Thou comest on silent pinions when the lusts 
Of self die in long watches of the night. 
Invisible wings, that, passing, whirl their gusts 
Of memories thronging from the infinite; 
Invisible wings out of the night, that rush 
Athwart invisible strings, and wake the chords 
Of boundless self amid the throbbing hush 
Of soul-impassioned vigils; as strange words 
That issue from the shoreless void of time; 
As whisperings unuttered save in dreams 
By lips impalpable, that link the rhyme 
Of life with life, from whence the awakening seems 
The mocking counterfeit of consciousness, 
The shock of discord harsh and passionless. 



25 



SOMEWHERE 



Lo, when the rosy tinge of dawn doth light 
The eastern limit of the sea and sky, 
From out that strange oppression of the night 
Thou lead'st me to the slanting sands; and high 
Along the curving reaches of the shore 
The vaulting ridges plunge, and chant to me, 
In thunder-throated requiems of dolore, 
The mighty pathos of the moaning sea. 
And somewhere by the waves that never sleep, 
In some unhistoried age has come to me 
This muffled lamentation of the deep. 
0, surely, somewhere by the restless sea. 
Beyond the gathered aeons, thus did weep 
Unto my soul these voices of the deep. 



27 



REQUIEM 



XI 



Forth from mid-ocean *s level glow of dawn 
The green-hued glassy breakers shoreward glide. 
They lift their hoary manes, they roar, they fawn 
Upon the yellow sands, and, ceasing, slide 
Into the sea beneath their whirling foam. 
They come like crested conquerors, that ride 
'Mid paeans measured by the metronome 
Of sounding floods, to sink beneath the stride 
Of other foam-crowned victors; and alone 
Within the deep forever doth abide 
Its ancient mystery; and the undertone 
Of some great sorrow comes, as if the wide 
Unfathomed main sobbed in low monotone 
The hoarded grief of ages in its moan. 



29 



THE WINGS OF THE MORNING 



XII 

Thou mountest with the sun out of the dawn ; 
And mounts my spirit through the Infinite, 
Away, away, through clearer ethers drawn, 
Bathed in ineffable effiors of light. 
Nor time nor place, false shadow-dreams of life, 
I^Tor mirrored phantoms in the glass of time, 
Flashed from the fleet kaleidoscope of strife, 
Avail to stay my far-flown spirit's climb. 
Dissolved in light are shadows of the night 
That weighed upon the pinions of my soul! 
Away into the wide white-flooded height 
From out the clinging mist that, like a stole, 
A mystic symbol of old error, lay 
Upon me ere the breaking of the day! 



31 



^ 



LOVE 



XIII 

Behold, this maiden's eyes are dark and deep 
As springs that gurgle through the sombre wood, 
And limpid as the dews at morn that sleep 
Upon lush flow'rs where yet the shadows brood. 
And through these amber portals of the soul 
Thou comest a wing-ed God, to fling upon 
The winds the empty shells of time, and roll 
Away old idols to oblivion. 
And, lo, the stream of life is mellow red. 
And all the rays from outward things that stole 
Across the idle outward sense, are sped 
Like shafts of sacred fire into the soul; 
And hidden censers charge the illumined skies, 
And all the world is filtered through her eyes. 



33 



FAME 



XIV 

Thou hoverest low, and sheddest a tender fire 
Of far-off glamors where young mothers dream. 
O'er them that suckle hero sons, the lyre 
Of fame thou touchest; and the stream 
Of life bears blazoning down its golden tide 
Wide wing-ed ships by fortune wafted on. 
And at high helms, bay-crowned, those heroes ride, 
Broad-browed and warrior-limbed, by whom are won 
World triumphs that proclaim the trend of time. 
Through new horizons sing new centuries; 
And come, from many a fancied shore and clime 
Beyond the sky-bound limit of the seas. 
Acclaims that, swelling with the tide of years, 
At dawn are memories and silent tears. 



35 



PEACE 



XV 

Thou com'st as sorrowing in the loitering hours 
Of waning summer, when the langorous airs 
Weigh on the petals of the drooping flowers, 
And steal upon the senses unawares. 
Peace in the vast dim heavens and beyond! 
Peace on the azure peaks; and in the vale 
A slumberous peace, where many a listless frond 
Dips in the tide, whose opal mirrors trail 
Their glimmering chaplet downward to the sea! 
Peace on the gull's white wings against the light, 
Like wraiths of olden dreams! And unto me 
The peace that comes to children in the night, 
And weighs on swimming lids when in half sleep 
They, 'gainst deep-bosomed mothers, cease to weep. 



37 



TRANSFIGURATION 



XVI 

Thou goest among the fields with them that toil 
Far from the roar of cities, where the tears 
And smiles of heaven woo from the amorous soil 
Full garners ever through the tranquil years. 
They sow with brows bared to the flush of dawn— 
They tread warm furrows with their naked feet — 
They breathe the dews of meadows skyward drawn— 
They, silent, feel the world's deep pulses beat— 
They, singing, cleave and turn the seething sod— 
They free the buried love-sap from the earth— 
Their yellowing fields wave to the winds of God. 
To them thou dost transfigure Death with Birth 
Through harmonies of alternate Bloom and Sear, 
Earth's Song and Silence, wedding year with year. 



39 



lEB 19 1912 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



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